Photo: (Queenie B and Barbet relaxing at Chimp Haven Photo: Jessi Princiotto/APNM)
2024 Status Update
By the end of 2024, the long campaign to secure sanctuary for the remaining chimpanzees at the Alamogordo Primate Facility (APF) reached its decisive legal conclusion. In March, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) formally withdrew its appeal of a 2022 ruling by U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby, who found that NIH’s refusal to transfer the chimpanzees to sanctuary violated the CHIMP Act.
The ruling now stands as binding precedent: every federally owned chimpanzee is entitled to permanent retirement at a federal sanctuary.
The victory was the result of a lawsuit brought by The Humane Society of the United States (now Humane World for Animals) and Animal Protection New Mexico, a powerful partnership that combined national legal expertise with New Mexico’s hard-hitting local advocacy.
This partnership’s persistence forced the federal government to honor a law it had been ignoring, clearing the final legal hurdle to sanctuary for the remaining chimps.
In November 2024, NIH announced that the twenty-three remaining chimpanzees at APF would be transferred to Chimp Haven in Louisiana beginning the following spring.
For these chimps— many elderly and medically fragile— this announcement ended years of limbo. The law had spoken, the courts had affirmed it, and at the close of the year, sanctuary was finally within reach.
2025 Status Update
April 2025 marked the historic completion of one of the nation’s longest-running animal welfare battles. The final chimpanzees from the Alamogordo Primate Facility were safely transferred to Chimp Haven, concluding a journey that spanned decades for the chimps that were filled with painful experimentation, confinement, boredom, substandard care, and loneliness. Those decades were also filled with unwavering advocacy, litigation, and a determination by APNM and its allies to see the chimps live out their lives in sanctuary.
The last chimps’ arrival at Chimp Haven in 2025 fulfilled the 2022 federal court ruling by Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby and the enforcement efforts that followed NIH’s withdrawal of its appeal in 2024. The transfers, carried out in several phases, required extraordinary coordination among NIH, Chimp Haven caregivers, veterinarians, and transport teams to ensure the safety of animals now advanced in age and often in delicate health.
Among them was Al, one of the oldest chimps formerly housed at APF, whose safe arrival symbolized the end of an era and the triumph of compassion over bureaucracy.
In May 2025, Animal Protection New Mexico joined Chimp Haven and long-time coalition partners to celebrate this milestone at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa on Santa Ana Pueblo. The gathering honored the chimpanzees’ freedom, the people who fought for their retirement, and New Mexico’s leadership in bringing this historic chapter to a humane close.
During the celebration, guests reflected on the long road to freedom through a series of powerful video presentations and remarks from leaders who helped make it possible. Attendees viewed moving videos on the history of chimpanzees in New Mexico and the years-long effort to end their confinement, and heard from Ambassador Tom Udall, along with Chimp Haven President and CEO Rana Smith and Colony Director Michelle Reininger, who spoke to the significance of this moment.
For APNM, this moment represents both closure and beginning: the end of APF’s confinement legacy and the start of a new standard for humane accountability in research. Today, the Alamogordo chimpanzees live under open skies, surrounded by family, peace, and care. Their freedom reminds us that persistence can turn legal victories into living, breathing justice.
New Mexico’s chimps are now enjoying their best chimp life at Chimp Haven.
Please give to APNM’s Chimps to Sanctuary Fund, to support their ongoing, lifelong care.
